Talk it through with Aurelius
Library›Aurelius›The problem
Aurelius · Work & Leadership
Knowledge + Guidance

How do I know which outage is really the emergency?

You take tickets in the order they arrive. That means urgency gets set by chance, not by what matters. Whoever complains first wins, even if their problem is small. This is not a tooling problem. It is a decision you and your team keep avoiding. You have never agreed on what "critical" actually means. So every outage turns into a debate instead of a quick check. Your team, together, must choose the measure before the next fire starts. That is the only fix that survives a 3 a.m. page.

◆ How this problem reads on the two dials
GuidanceKnowledge
More coaching
Some to learn
1:1 with AureliusWith others (a Pod)
Some one-to-one
Practise with peers
The team needs one simple rule taught once, then daily discipline to apply it under pressure.
How the two dials adapt to you →
What’s really going on

Rank outages by who is actually blocked, not by who shouts loudest. Before the next alarm, agree with your team on one question: how many people cannot work right now? The ticket with the biggest answer goes first. Everything else waits. Decide the rule now, not mid-fire.

🔒 What you’ll build togetherUnlock by starting
A moveWrite down, as a team, the one question that defines critical: how many people are blocked right now.
A moveAgree on three tiers before the next outage: blocks everyone, blocks some, blocks one person.
A moveWhen a ticket arrives, say the tier out loud before anyone touches a keyboard.
A moveAssign one person per shift to call the tier, so panic doesn't decide it.
A moveAfter each outage, ask: did we rank it right? Fix the rule, not just the response.
PractiseTier the Fire · a Pod of 4 · 30 min

What changes unlock by starting

  • Your team stops arguing about what to fix first.
  • You can explain, in one sentence, why a ticket jumped the line.
  • Small issues stop eating time meant for real outages.
  • The next 3 a.m. page gets handled by rule, not by panic.

Related problems

One object, two jobs: a public answer to a real problem, and — the moment you start the chat — Aurelius’s live plan for your version of it.